


State of Grace

by silverfoxstole



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (TV Movie 1996)
Genre: F/M, TV Movie alternate ending, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 17:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7626973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverfoxstole/pseuds/silverfoxstole
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conversation that never happened. Or did it? The Doctor and Grace chat as the TARDIS winds forward to the dawn of the year 2000.</p>
            </blockquote>





	State of Grace

**Author's Note:**

> This started writing itself a few days ago, sliding in between a couple of scenes at the end of the TV Movie. I wish Grace had been able to stick around; she's fun to write.

At first glance the cavernous room appeared to be empty but Grace wasn’t fooled; after a few moments she spotted him, on the staircase, sitting halfway up like Kermit’s nephew Robin. His coat was even appropriately green... or was it brown? Slowly she wandered towards him, past the Eye of Harmony; now that it was all over it looked like some huge bizarre fountain or garden ornament rather than the source of so much potential death and destruction. The whole room was still now, chaos and disaster kept in check, just out of reach.

It was hard to believe she’d actually died in here, died and somehow been brought back to life apparently by the sentimental caprices of an alien time machine, or so the Doctor had told her. She had little memory of it, just flashes that had spiralled through her dreams after the strains of the day finally caught up with her and she fell asleep on the big velvet-covered sofa in the control room. The last thing she recalled was the Doctor tucking a tartan blanket over her and shushing Lee when the kid asked a question in a loud voice; when she woke up the room was empty, leaving her with just the humming of the TARDIS for company.

“I thought I’d find you here,” she remarked as she reached the stairs; he was looking past her, out into the room, elbows resting on his knees, hands loosely clasped. As she got closer she could see that his expression was tense, though, however relaxed his posture, and for a moment he looked much older than he appeared. Another man seemed to be sitting in his place, tired and careworn, before he turned his head and the years vanished in an instant, eyes lighting up and his unlined face creasing in a delighted smile at the sight of her.

“An almost infinite TARDIS, thousands of rooms from which to choose and you track me down straight away,” he remarked. “I’m obviously becoming too predictable in my old age.”

“Lucky guess more like.” Grace sat down beside him, and belatedly processed what he’d just said. “Wait a minute: are you telling me that there’s more to this place? It’s already the size of a football stadium!”

He nodded, curls bouncing. “Oh, much, much more. I can give you the grand tour if you like... well, the abbreviated version at least; shouldn’t take more than six or seven hours.”

“Maybe some other time. There’s only so much weirdness I can handle in one day,” she replied dryly and he laughed.

“Very wise. I’ll let you off this time but be sure to come back when I’ve got the butterfly room up and running.”

“The what?” Off he went again at a tangent, confusing the hell out of her. He seemed to revel in it. “What the hell’s a butterfly room? Some extravagant way of predicting disaster?”

“As in, a butterfly beats its wings on one side of the universe and I get a call to warn me of the approaching storm? Not exactly, but that’s a good idea.” The Doctor looked thoughtful for a moment and shook his head with a grin. “No, no, no, this is something I’ve just thought of, the perfect place to keep my butterfly collection. It’s quite a brilliant notion, if I do say so myself; I don’t know why I’ve never considered it before.”

Grace pursed her lips. “You have a butterfly collection? It doesn’t seem your style, somehow: gassing things and sticking pins in them.”

“I haven’t yet, and it isn’t. I plan to keep real ones, in their own environment.”

“Ohhh. Like a conservatory?”

“No, like a meadow. Or possibly a hillside. Or both, I haven’t quite decided yet.” He drummed his fingers on the step beside him and raised his eyebrows. “What do you think?”

She looked at him for a long moment, decided he was actually being serious, and said, “I think you’re a complete lunatic.”

He laughed again, and Grace liked the sound. It was carefree, not crazy. “Nothing’s changed in the last few hours, then. Indulge me and hold off the men in white coats until I’ve run this new persona in for a few weeks; it might not be permanent.”

There was a pause, and in the ensuing silence both of them found their gaze drawn back to the monolithic eye that dominated the floor below. The ambulance gurney and the broken staff had gone; there was nothing to indicate that a mighty conflict had occurred, that the Earth had nearly been pulled inside out, that a chain reaction had almost started to destroy the universe, to wipe out the future. A few leaves stirred in the breeze that seemed to come from nowhere and go nowhere. Grace felt it lift her hair and saw it ruffle the Doctor’s curls; if she looked very closely she could just see the faint marks left beneath his eyes by the Master’s vice, and soon they would be gone, too. Nothing left.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she asked quietly, suddenly desperately wanting to know.

It was a long time before he spoke, and when he did his voice was clipped, matter of fact; there was no room for whimsy here and she was grateful that he didn’t try to sugar-coat it, to flimflam her. “He was sucked into a miniature black hole, instantly atomised by forces more powerful than there are words to describe them.” He glanced at her, and those blue eyes were hard. “I’d say that’s pretty conclusive, wouldn’t you?”

“Shame,” she said, and he blinked, surprised. “I wish he’d suffered more.”

The Doctor tutted. “Grace Holloway, that is not the opinion of someone who saves lives for a living.”

“Maybe not.” She lifted her head and met his gaze defiantly. “But it _is_ the opinion of the person he threw off that balcony.” The Master had killed two people, three if you included Bruce, and tried to do the same to the Doctor. Why wasn’t he angry? Maybe he was, he just wasn’t showing it. _She_ was angry, somewhere inside, it was only logical. Wasn’t it? She had _died_... but she couldn’t say it out loud, not yet anyway. At the moment she was far too relieved to be alive. Eventually, though, she knew she was going to wonder what the hell actually happened and she had an inkling she might not get as straight an answer to that question. “Where’s Lee?” she asked.

Again the Doctor didn’t reply right away, but she thought she saw something shift slightly in his eyes as he nodded, almost imperceptibly, and she had the strangest impression she’d passed some sort of test. She realised that whatever had happened to him when he regenerated was settling at last, that he was calmer, more in control, more... more self-assured. More comfortable in his own skin. His new skin. “In the kitchen,” he said. “For some reason violent conflict seems to make human teenagers extremely hungry.”

“Encountered a few have you?” Grace enquired lightly.

“One or two. Do you know him well?”

“Lee?” She snorted. “Hardly at all. I met him when he brought you to the hospital... the... other you, I mean.”

“Still the same me, Grace, ultimately. And that was very good of him; I would have hated to die in a back street alley amongst the dustbins. Very undignified.” He pulled a face and she almost laughed.

“I’m not sure his motives were all that altruistic; he ran off with your things,” she pointed out. “And he was quick enough to sell you out to the Master.”

“Ah, but he saw the right of the situation when it mattered and that’s what counts,” the Doctor chided, lifting a finger like one of her old med school lecturers. “He has the potential to turn his life around.”

“And right now he could be stealing your family silver,” Grace retorted. She shook her head, smiling. “Do you always see the best in people?”

“You make it sound as though that’s a failing,” he objected with a pout that made him look like a little boy who’d just been told he couldn’t go out and play. It occurred to her that she’d never seen him sit so still before; even after his memories returned he’d been bouncing around like a moth in a bell jar, almost radiating impatience. At times it had been quite alarming. She liked this better.

“No. No, not at all. I wish I could think like that,” she admitted. His other hand was still resting on the step and she impulsively laid her own over it, entwining her fingers with his long ones and trying to hide the involuntary shiver down her spine from the chill of his unearthly skin. He smiled at her, and this time it was soft. “It’s a good thing to have, that optimism.”

“I’m glad to have it back. It’s been a while.” He squeezed her hand gently, face clouding over for a second before he brightened, a definite gleam in his eye. “Oh, by the way, I don’t believe I thanked you for saving my life.”

Grace frowned. “I didn’t - ”

“Oh, but you did, you _did_! If you hadn’t broken the connection between the Master and I we wouldn’t be sitting here now and that is not an outcome I care to contemplate, so thank you very much, Doctor Holloway.” That soft smile had turned into a very cheeky grin and she found herself laughing again. She’d laughed more in the last few minutes than she had in years. A little voice in the back of her head told her that if he decided to stick around there was every chance she was going to fall for him, and hard, if she hadn’t already.

“Well, I suppose that makes up for me having killed you in the first place,” she said ruefully. Two hearts... _not_ something she was going to be caught out by again!

“Oh, yes, yes, yes, of course,” the Doctor murmured. “Should I thank you for that, too?”

“What?!” Grace stared at him. “That’s insane! You can’t thank me for killing you!”

“Why not?” He looked genuinely puzzled. “If you hadn’t killed me we might never have met!”

“I got a microsurgical probe lost in your veins!” she yelled. “Did you forget that?”

“No, I hadn’t, and yes, it was rather painful for a while there but you got your probe back and it all worked out in the end, didn’t it?” The Doctor watched her expectantly, eyes wide and innocent. “Well, didn’t it?”

“If you call the world nearly being destroyed all right, then, yeah, I suppose it did. Oh, my God, you are impossible,” she told him, and he wiggled his eyebrows at her.

“Face it, Grace, you wouldn’t have me any other way.”

“I could have done, though, couldn’t I?” Sitting her beside her, looking for all the world like a human man (OK, she had to admit, an extremely attractive human man) was a creature completely unknown to medical science; by rights he shouldn’t even exist and yet here he was, large as life. He’d shucked off his old body like a snake shedding its skin, or a newt growing a new tail and it didn’t seem to faze him at all. She couldn’t help wondering what the other him, the life she’d accidentally ended, had been like. He’d been so much older, such a funny little man, and she suddenly felt a pang of sadness that she’d not been able to meet him properly. Now she never would. “This regeneration business... you make it all sound so simple but I just can’t get my head round it no matter how hard I try. You’ve apparently just become a completely different person and yet you’re so blasé about it. Doesn’t it bother you?”

He shrugged. “It’s no different to a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. I don’t see you denying _their_ existence.” 

“You have a thing about butterflies, don’t you?” 

“I have a feeling I’m going to.” He grinned again, bouncing to his feet and pulling her with him. “Anyway, who wants to be normal?”

“Doctor, believe me, you are anything _but_ normal,” she told him and he gave her a wounded look that made her feel as if she’d just kicked a puppy. His free hand stole to his hearts and he shook his head mournfully.

“Grace, Grace, Grace, that hurts, you know, it really does.” There was a beat when she thought he might actually be telling the truth, but then he winked and she slapped his shoulder. He pretended to stagger under the blow. “Ow! I’ll tell you what: why don’t we go and have that cup of tea I believe I suggested what feels like a fortnight ago? I am desperately in need of a good cuppa; the Master escaping ruined the last one.”

Grace realised she had no idea how long she’d been asleep. It could have been days since they’d defeated the Master for all she knew. Did the progression of the hours even run normally inside the TARDIS? “Do we have time?”

Again that shrug. “Considering we’re currently hovering around sometime last week I‘d say we have all the time in the world. I’m sure that conversation we were going to have will be much more pleasant across the kitchen table than through a letterbox.”

“You mean the one about whether you’re completely crazy or not?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, no, no, no, that would be very boring. I think we’ve each established our points of view regarding that particular topic.”

“And concluded that you _are_ completely crazy.”

“In your opinion; I seem to recall requesting a stay of execution on that one. If my lady permits?” Bowing, the Doctor offered her his arm like a gentleman in an old movie and she took it with an ironic curtsy. His eyes danced mischievously. “Come on; if we’re lucky Lee might have left us some of the chocolate Hobnobs.”

“What on earth are – no, never mind. Do you ever talk sense for more than two minutes?” She shook her head in mild exasperation as the laughter bubbled up again.

“What for? Nonsense is far more interesting, and I’ll prove it to you if you’ll allow me.” He eyeballed her and there was a challenge in the pale blue gaze now. “What do you say? There’s a whole universe of fascinating nonsense just waiting around the corner.”

Grace Holloway had always kept both feet on the ground, keeping her faith in the real and the tangible. Now, however, she had to admit that she was starting to see how attractive the nonsensical and impossible could be, especially in the company of this man, a man who was nonsensical and impossible himself and delighted in being both. There was soft velvet under her fingers, the velvet of  a coat that was part of a fancy dress costume but that he wore as though it had been made for him, as though running around San Francisco at the end of the twentieth century dressed as Wild Bill Hickok was the most natural thing in the world. She tightened her grip on his sleeve, still unsure whether it was green or brown. Maybe it was both; by now she wouldn’t have been at all surprised.

“In that case, Doctor, lead on,” she said. “Show me just how ridiculous the future can be.”

The Doctor smiled as he led her out of the cloister room, the huge doors booming shut behind them. “Oh, Grace, you have no idea...”

 

 


End file.
